Survey on jumbos with foreign expertise

by Dhaneshi Yatawara

Government and private institutions from India and the United States
will share their expertise in the Sri Lankan elephant survey shortly.
This will be in addition to the major part played by the local
expertise. It was revealed at the recently held workshop by the
Department of Wildlife Conservation to educate officials of the regional
level on the methodologies for the survey.

According to the wildlife officials the best time for the survey is
the peak of the dry season when most of the water holes are dry and
hence elephants mostly use water holes that are still not dry which are
identifiable.

One of the leading elephant experts Professor Charles Saanthiapillai
emphasised that particular attention must be given to the recording of
calves and tuskers. "By keeping track of the proportion of calves and
very old animals in the population, it would be possible to get a clear
idea of the growth rate and the death rate in the wild.

The objectives of the survey are mainly to determine the composition
of the population to find out the proportion of calves, juveniles,
sub-adults and adults in the population, to determine the proportion of
tuskers, to determine the sex ratio and to the health condition of the
animals.